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Vanna
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Thank you all so much. You all have given me a great amount of information to digest. I will continue to pray and read the links and suggested resources. Thank you. Truly.
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folklaur
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CrunchyMom wrote:
JodieLyn wrote:
I can see that what I was trying to express I didn't/don't have the words for.. 
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Perhaps what you are intending to express in regards to God's will in creating life through nature can be related to life created outside of God's moral will. Life from relations outside of marriage or in vitro fertilization or other methods morally prohibited by the church (and thus, outside of God's will for us since it is never his will that we sin) will still result in a life according to the natural processes he has set up.
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I was coming back to say something like this, and see you have already done an excellent job!
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Willa
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CrunchyMom wrote:
| Perhaps what you are intending to express in regards to God's will in creating life through nature can be related to life created outside of God's moral will. Life from relations outside of marriage or in vitro fertilization or other methods morally prohibited by the church (and thus, outside of God's will for us since it is never his will that we sin) will still result in a life according to the natural processes he has set up. |
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That was nicely said, Lindsay. 
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Willa
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JodieLyn
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Yes Lindsey.. that is what I was attempting to say. Thank you it was very well put.
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SallyT
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One thing that has struck me across Catholic theology, not merely as relates to marriage and family, is the language of sacrifice. This is notably missing from Protestant theological discourse, and it was one of the great epiphanies which led me into Catholicism: the idea that suffering and trials, large and small, are redemptive both personally and on a larger scale.
I'm not sure I can articulate it as well as I'd like, but I think that this concept definitely comes into play in the ongoing process of discerning family size, child spacing and the like. I think it's kind of the missing piece to the "desire for a child" puzzle. When my fourth child came along on the heels of my third, and we were broke, jobless, and so forth, not to mention kind of exhausted because we already had a very demanding baby and two older children, and I was not feeling much personal desire for this child at times, it helped me first of all to pray the Angelus -- I wasn't Catholic yet, but we prayed it in our Anglo-Catholic church in England, and I really began to pay attention to that "Be it done unto me according to thy word" business about then. I didn't fully have the language of "offering it up" in my vocabulary, but it's what the experience was teaching me to do. That child, who's now 4 and a delight, was God's instrument in beginning to teach me both obedience and sacrifice -- lessons I haven't remotely perfectly learned, of course, but I can look at that pregnancy, which at the time I really wasn't sure I "wanted" (though I would not have had an abortion), and see it as the starting point for a whole new level of faith.
What I'm not sure I can say adequately is how that's different from the Quiverful concept, except that that mentality seems to stress trusting God -- which isn't bad, of course, but there doesn't seem to be the corresponding level of striving for personal holiness, and learning to see that God uses our burdens to that end, which is present in Catholicism. The Protestant understanding of sanctification is different in many ways, and I think it's that difference which is brought to bear on these approaches to the business of being open to life.
Does that make sense?
Incidentally . . . after that fourth child, we did for a time practice NFP to avoid pregnancy, as our finances just kept getting worse and worse, and we were afraid of another pregnancy. Now I'm 43, we don't use anything, and after several years of no pregnancy and increasing signs of the end of fertility, I kind of regret that we weren't gutsier. Clearly we have the children God meant us to have -- some were "planned," some were not, and I struggled harder with some to accept and love the child who was coming (no problem now, of course -- and we certainly don't speak in these terms in their hearing) -- but desire or no desire for a child, I haven't regretted having any of them. I only regret the ones we might have had, but wasted our time.
Just food for thought, on the subject of desire and discernment.
Sally
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Martha
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JodieLyn wrote:
| Not in the same way Helen.. otherwise why would Catholics believe NFP would work at all? |
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okay. bear with me. I'm really sick and shouldn't be here. my abruptness is not harshness. just a desire to get the words out before I need to hit the trash can again. 
Yes, God most certainly does directly will each life. He is the creator of all things. The couple are only CO-creators.
NFP doesn't always work. (No birth control does.)
When NFP (and any other method of avoiding pregnancy) works, it's because we have free will to say "no" or "at least not this month".
The basic quiverfull concept of not using any birth control what so ever is completely okay with the catholic church for any married couple. NO couple is ever required to use NFP to any degree.
Now if you explore WHY some prots are qf - then it gets murky on how well their reasons may or may not mesh with the Catholic faith.
Some not only believe we shouldn't use any birth control, but that we should purposely try to have as many children as possible. They often site that they are trying to raise a Godly army of christians. This is not Catholic. Not using birth control does not equal trying to conceive as much as possible. Not all hold that view, but some do and I don't agree with it.
Some don't feel it's okay for a woman to deny her husband - ever. I don't think that is in line with catholic teaching either. We shouldn't never spurn a spouse out of anger or resentment or spite. But I do think it's perfectly okay at times for a wife (or husband) to prefer to just not be intimate.
Most qf people I've met are not in those camps, but the ones that are tend to label the entire concept sometimes.
Most of the qf people I've met are simply leaving the creation of life in God's very capable hands and accepting whatever He decides to send. Whether it be no more or 10 more.
Okay I've got to stop there. Don't know when I'll get back to this thread, but I hope it goes smoothly.
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SallyT
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One other thought on the subject of a contraceptive mentality: it's a perversion of the rightly ordered acceptance of a child as the natural outcome of lovemaking, so that one believes, and assumes without even thinking about it, that the natural outcome is unnatural and not supposed to happen (see my own thoughts above for an example . . . ). It's also a lived-out denial of female biology itself -- a person contracepting lives in the assumption that the body is NOT supposed to work reproductively, and every effort should be made to cure it of its reproductive tendencies, as if that were a disorder to be kept at all times under medication.
I know we all know this, but I'm thinking about how NFP can be a part of this mentality. On one level it isn't, because you're not working against your body or denying anything about its reproductive potential -- if anything, you're that much more aware of it and working with it. On another level, though, if it provides the opportunity to fall into that first mode of thinking -- that a pregnancy would be the unnatural outcome of the conjugal act, and you're using NFP because your basic assumption is that a child, like a disease or disorder, would ruin the life you now have -- then it seems to me that that's a problem.
I really don't get the sense that a lot of this figures into Quiverfull thinking, which stems from a verse in the Psalms -- it's a literalistic, individualistic application of a piece of Scripture without the fuller context of tradition and settled doctrine. It's not wrong to have the Quiverfull mentality at all, and not at odds with Catholic teaching as I understand it, but it is a less complete and connected understanding (I believe) of what we'd call the Theology of the Body. A thoughtful Catholic committed to what I guess you could call "unregulated" openness to life -- trying to think of a non-value-laden way to say that -- has made that commitment on . . . again, how to say this? . . . more holistic terms. That is, it's not just "me and my family and we personally were convicted by this verse in Scripture," but a response to a Catholic teaching which addresses, in essence, the whole cosmos: marriage and family as icons for Christ and the Church, for God in His creative sovereignty, for the ordering of the Kingdom of God. It's another living-out of the Church Triumphant, which is as different from raising an army of Godly people as the Church is from a roomful of people who happen to believe in God.
I think, anyway.
Sally
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CrunchyMom
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Martha wrote:
| Some not only believe we shouldn't use any birth control, but that we should purposely try to have as many children as possible. They often site that they are trying to raise a Godly army of christians. This is not Catholic. Not using birth control does not equal trying to conceive as much as possible. Not all hold that view, but some do and I don't agree with it. |
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Oddly, my dh and I were just discussing this last night. My family had quiverfull friends growing up who worked to have as many children as possible--one family because the husband believed that God told him he should have x number of children.
Dh has a co-worker who was relating an exchange with his sick child's new visiting nurse. She is Mennonite and one of 16 and he (a practicing Catholic) was suprised to hear her express that being from a large family wasn't really all that great. He was suprised since most people he knows from large families have mostly good things to say.
My dh is one of 12, and his parents (practicing Catholics) had the attitude that they were open to whatever God gave them. He loves his family and thinks large families are great.
We thought that perhaps this subtle difference in attitude (I'm open to more if it is God's will versus I need to make as many babies as possible) was one that affected a subtle difference in the attitudes of the children somehow? Not sure.
I will say that the feelings *I* have when around the two different philosophies is quite different. As much as I am used to very large families (many of dh's siblings have 8-10 children and most of those in our circle of Catholic friends have growing families as well), I still feel like their attitude (namely, the family who has a particular number as a goal "from God") in having children seems "abnormal" or "weird" somehow, even though the actual number of children isn't all that different from other families that I feel completely comfortable with and would love to be like some day.
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folklaur
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hhhmmmm...not meaning to hijack, and if it is not conisdered an okay subject to explore, just let me know.
I am trying to work through this in my head, so it isn't like I am challenging what anyone is saying.
I just need help in getting my thoughts around it.
If we know, through Church teaching, that say, for instance, a couple isn't supposed to use IVF.
And said couple DOES use IVF.
How does that line up with the child being willed directly by God?
Also -- (and this is a more extreme and troubling example) say a child of 12 is molested by her father and gets pregnant. Of course the resulting child isn't "sinful" or any less "human" due to his conception - but how can his conception really be the direct will of God? Could it really be God's will that the girl was molested? Of course not. But then...how does that work exactly?
I always kind of felt God allows Biology to work - the way HE set it up to work. Sometimes it works (resulting in pregnancy) sometimes it doesn't (for either the short or the long term, with some people being infertile.)
God allows us to work with Him, and by giving us that previledge, He also allows our free will (and often sinful nature - as in the case of the father in the example) to play a role.
Where am I getting it wrong? I would like to be sure I have a fully Catholic understanding here....
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Martha
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Quote:
How does that line up with the child being willed directly by God?
Of course the resulting child isn't "sinful" or any less "human" due to his conception - but how can his conception really be the direct will of God? Could it really be God's will that the girl was molested? Of course not. But then...how does that work exactly? |
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The presumption here is that God is limited by our free will. I don't think so.
We all have the free will to choose wrongly.
God works with us where we are with the idea that one day we will be fully with Him.
If where a girl/couple is is a terrible state of sin (through their own choices or the actions of another), I feel it entirely possible that God may send a blessing, some small bit of joy, to possibly lead them to Him.
Personally, I know many people who got pregnant as teens, had IVF, or had a baby while with a horribly physically abusive husband. I feel God was completely present when their little blessing were conceived. A few have never been able to see those blessings for what they were.  But many others had never even thought to look to God until they looked at their baby and it really made a huge change, a positive change, in their life that they may never have be able to consider before that baby came along.
I really can't say this enough.
A gift's value doesn't change just because the person receiving it doesn't appreciate it.
And in the case of this discussion, the thoughtfulness and purpose of the One who sends it doesn't change either, imho.
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folklaur
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Oh, Martha! I know how horrible you feel, and I am in no way trying to argue or debate with you.
So if you can't come back to answer again, I understand. But if you can...(or anyone else feels so inclined....)
I get what you are saying. Kind of. My trouble comes in here:
Martha wrote:
| I feel God was completely present when their little blessing were conceived. |
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How do you explain to a girl, a child herself, after being r*ped by her father, that "God was completely present for the conception of their child"?
I can understand God taking the result of sinfulness and making good come out of it.
But:
If God doesn't want us to sin,
And r*pe is sinful act,
how can the result of the act be the will of God?
If the will of God had been followed, no sinful act would have taken place, thus no child would have been conceived.
Of course, God can take that situation, and bring good out of it. Such as, she could have a healthy child that she puts up for adoption that is adopted by a childless couple longing for a baby. But I don't think God willed for her to endure r*pe in order for that other couple to be blessed with a child.
I hope I am making sense.
I think the details are subtle but important.
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Willa
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Martha wrote:
We all have the free will to choose wrongly.
God works with us where we are with the idea that one day we will be fully with Him.
If where a girl/couple is is a terrible state of sin (through their own choices or the actions of another), I feel it entirely possible that God may send a blessing, some small bit of joy, to possibly lead them to Him. |
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Yes, the baby is a precious blessing, a direct creation of God. Yet the parents may be sinners. They may not be grateful for the gift. Sadly, they may even act to destroy it.
A mystery, but one we see in other areas of life too. "The sun shines on the just and unjust" -- you see people receiving gifts they don't strictly deserve -- in fact "gift" includes the idea of something given without being deserved. Life is the ultimate example of that. Oh, how conscious I am that I did not "deserve" life myself, much less deserve the many other things God has given me, and the richest treasures have been my children.
They really have led me to God in many ways, as you said, Martha.
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Willa
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Willa
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cactus mouse wrote:
But:
If God doesn't want us to sin,
And r*pe is sinful act,
how can the result of the act be the will of God?
If the will of God had been followed, no sinful act would have taken place, thus no child would have been conceived. |
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I was crossposting with you, before, Laura. I am probably not the one to answer your question. I think the difficulty is with the two kinds of will that I think (Helen?) was talking about.
God does not will sin, ever. He permits, allows people to exercise free will, and sometimes they do grievous, horrible things.
Once the sin has taken place, God does work to bring good out of evil. The baby itself is precious, eternal, as much invested with human dignity as any of us, and who knows what good will result of his or her existence.
The evil is in the father and the horrible, "cry out to heaven for justice" sin he has done. That is separate. God does not always intervene to stop these evils, but He does not will them directly.
This is probably the same terminology that we were having trouble with a bit earlier -- God doesn't always intervene to stop the *natural* consequences -- the conception of a child. But the child is still a particularly ensouled creation of God, and is good for that reason, though conceived in sinful circumstances.
I have never had to explain that to someone who has been a victim, and I am sure it would be difficult to see it. I've read the witness of r*pe victims who have been blessed by their children, though not by the original victimization of course.
Have to go feed children so am in a hurry, hope this made some sense.
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folklaur
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Willa wrote:
The baby itself is precious, eternal, as much invested with human dignity as any of us, and who knows what good will result of his or her existence.
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Absolutly, completely, totally in agreement here!
Willa wrote:
| God doesn't always intervene to stop the *natural* consequences -- the conception of a child. But the child is still a particularly ensouled creation of God, and is good for that reason, though conceived in sinful circumstances. |
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Okay, I think it is here that I am seeing a difference.
I think I understood the "natural consequences" to be part of the natural order of biology set up by God through which He works. He doesn't step in to stop the natural order of the way biology works. But, I didn't understand that to mean that every time conception occurs that it is directly willed by God.
However, I am in complete agreement with every child being "a particularly ensouled creation of God, and good for that reason."
Willa - I'm glad you shared your thoughts. The more I can talk and discuss it the better I can work through it!
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marianne
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SallyT wrote:
One other thought on the subject of a contraceptive mentality: it's a perversion of the rightly ordered acceptance of a child as the natural outcome of lovemaking, so that one believes, and assumes without even thinking about it, that the natural outcome is unnatural and not supposed to happen (see my own thoughts above for an example . . . ). It's also a lived-out denial of female biology itself -- a person contracepting lives in the assumption that the body is NOT supposed to work reproductively, and every effort should be made to cure it of its reproductive tendencies, as if that were a disorder to be kept at all times under medication.
I know we all know this, but I'm thinking about how NFP can be a part of this mentality. On one level it isn't, because you're not working against your body or denying anything about its reproductive potential -- if anything, you're that much more aware of it and working with it. On another level, though, if it provides the opportunity to fall into that first mode of thinking -- that a pregnancy would be the unnatural outcome of the conjugal act, and you're using NFP because your basic assumption is that a child, like a disease or disorder, would ruin the life you now have -- then it seems to me that that's a problem.
I really don't get the sense that a lot of this figures into Quiverfull thinking, which stems from a verse in the Psalms -- it's a literalistic, individualistic application of a piece of Scripture without the fuller context of tradition and settled doctrine. It's not wrong to have the Quiverfull mentality at all, and not at odds with Catholic teaching as I understand it, but it is a less complete and connected understanding (I believe) of what we'd call the Theology of the Body. A thoughtful Catholic committed to what I guess you could call "unregulated" openness to life -- trying to think of a non-value-laden way to say that -- has made that commitment on . . . again, how to say this? . . . more holistic terms. That is, it's not just "me and my family and we personally were convicted by this verse in Scripture," but a response to a Catholic teaching which addresses, in essence, the whole cosmos: marriage and family as icons for Christ and the Church, for God in His creative sovereignty, for the ordering of the Kingdom of God. It's another living-out of the Church Triumphant, which is as different from raising an army of Godly people as the Church is from a roomful of people who happen to believe in God.
I think, anyway.
Sally |
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Wonderful commentary, Sally. Thanks!
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Helen
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SallyT wrote:
| A thoughtful Catholic committed to what I guess you could call "unregulated" openness to life -- trying to think of a non-value-laden way to say that -- |
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I like the way you said this Sally.
Thank you for putting into words a difficult concept to communicate.
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Lara Sauer
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I would like to add some thoughts on "the will of God" that I think may be of some help in this area.
God has a POSITIVE will: He directly called the earth and the stars into being. When God's positive will is made manifest, it is always a miracle...He creates something out of nothing...He stops the seastorm...He makes the blind to see.
God has a PERMISSIVE will: This permissive will allows us our free will. This means that we can choose to do good, or we can choose to do evil if we so wish. It also allows for natural disaster along the lines of a Hurricane Katrina. God is able to have a permissive will because He is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Since He his outside of time (His omnipresence) He knows ( His ominiscience) that he will be able (His omnipotence) to draw greater good (His omnibenevolence), either from a naturally occuring disaster or from a sinful action or morally just action chosen through the operation of someone's free will.
(Calivinist denied God's permissive will in favor of the concept of pre-destination...)
The fact that a women becomes pregnant is an outcome of the collision of God's positive will and God's permissive will interacting with Natural Law. A women's cycle of fertility is a natural fact. God in his postitive will has designed her body to be accomodating to new life once each month. If two people come together during the period of her fertility the natural outcome of that act may be a pregnancy, (His permissive will...it is in this way that He allows us the great privilege of being "co-creators" with him.
The morality of that act is determined by the the intentions of the people who are engaging in relations at that time of the month.
God's positive will was in force when he chose to create man and woman the way that he initially did...able to beget children.
God's permissive will comes into play in allowing us the freedom to engage in either morally good or morally evil acts in regard to our ability to beget children.
The Natural Law comes into play when we make use of our ability to beget children at the time of the month that God's positive will has pre-ordained a woman to be able to conceive.
To speak biologically here for a moment...if a sperm and an ovum unite successfully, natural law demands that a child be the end result...this is why a child can come about in either the marital embrace (God's desire for His people), as a result of rape or through IVF (man's exercise of his own free-will).
I hope this is helpful in some small way.
Peace and prayers.
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Martha
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It is my strong understanding that God's positive will (to use your phrase)is still at work.
I do not believe he created adam and eve and then walked away from involvement in human creation to just let nature go it's course. There's a term for this thought, but I'm too medicated to think of it at the moment.
God's divine will is present in every conception.
Biblicly speaking, there's many examples in the bible of God's people sinning, but being given blessings in hopes of softening their hearts. This often happening with children even. Hagar cast out with her son comes to mind.
God doesn't want us to sin.
But we are mere humans.
He is more than capable and has more than enough mercy to work around our sins.
I really don't understand why anyone would think that a child is less wanted by God because of the parents' sins? The opinion is that a child born into sin is somehow only grundgingly allowed to exist because if God were really involved the child would never have been concieved. God's mercy is limitless and He knowledge is not ours.
I fail to understand how one can say all children are a blessing and in the next breathe say some really weren't wanted by God.
Again. The lack of appreciation of the parent does not change the value of the gift that's given.
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SallyT
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Re Vanna's original question -- this has been parsed out already, I think, in the course of the conversation, but Wikipedia (for what it's worth) provides a useful-enough summation of the differences between the Quiverful school of thought and Catholic teaching:
Although there are a few similarities between the two, Roman Catholics sometimes adopt the Quiverfull label without understanding the quite substantial distinctions.
"Similarities
However, Roman Catholic teaching but not all Quiverfull adherents interpret the Genesis creation and post-Noahic flood passages to "be fruitful and multiply" (see Genesis 1:22; 9:7) as commandments rather than only actions that result in blessings.[40]
Differences
Moreover, Roman Catholic theology emphasizes the relationship between sexual intercourse and fertility, rather than children per se, as part of the natural law of God, and considers artificial interference with fertility such as barriers or hormones to be a grave sin. While frivolous or materialistic reasons for avoiding children are seen as immoral, the Roman Catholic Church permits natural family planning (NFP) for grave reasons, although the translation of the Latin word "grave" is sometimes debated.[41] Use of NFP to avoid pregnancy may be actively promoted in extreme circumstances such as serious health problems, dire poverty, and active persecution.[42]
Dissimilarly, Quiverfull emphasizes the continual role of Providence in controlling whether or not and when a woman conceives due to God having exclusive prerogative in "opening and closing the womb". Quiverfull regards all birth control methods alike in so far as they further such avoidance, while Catholicism permits natural family planning."
Thought that might of interest, especially the dichotomy between the emphasis on fertility, or the potential for life, in Catholicism, and the emphasis on children, the visible result, in the Quiverful movement. I thought it was interesting, anyway.
Sally
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folklaur
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| Posted: June 05 2008 at 1:20pm | IP Logged
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Martha wrote:
I really don't understand why anyone would think that a child is less wanted by God because of the parents' sins? |
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oh, ouch. I don't think I ever said that a child is less wanted by God.
Martha wrote:
I fail to understand how one can say all children are a blessing and in the next breathe say some really weren't wanted by God. |
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Again, I never said that some "weren't wanted by God."
ouch, again.
I did say I was trying to logically work through it.
And it does seem to follow, that if the parents in some given situations had not sinned, a child could not have resulted. Since God NEVER desires for us to sin....and here is where I run into a problem, I run into trouble in my own mind trying to work it out. So, I asked for help to try to better grasp it.
Martha wrote:
I do not believe he created adam and eve and then walked away from involvement in human creation to just let nature go it's course. There's a term for this thought, but I'm too medicated to think of it at the moment. |
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Yes, there is a term for it that I also can't remember, and from what I understand it is a heretical way of thinking. I also never said that God just set it up, walked away, and doesn't get involved.
But - is it heretical to think that God set things up to work a certain way, and that they actually do work in the way that He designed them too?
I'm sorry I said anything. Really. Nevermind. I am guessing this wasn't the place for this kind of discussion. So please just disregard.
Martha - I hope you are feeling better.
And thanks to others who tried to help me work through it.
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: QuiverFull = Catholic??
